Day 48

I was never a real outside cat. Not like an alley cat. I never got into meowring standoffs in the street. Nobody ever bit off the tip of my ear.

But I was the kind of cat who whined at the door. Any time I got the chance I’d be fixing to bust out. Finally, after enough protest chants and freedom songs, the people would get the message that I wanted out, and open the door for me, and I’d get out there and wander around. I’d strut. Sometimes I wouldn’t come back till night time.

Lately I don’t even look at the door.

I stretch out on the couch or jump up on the bed. I do my rounds. I watch birds from the window. I stare at things no one else can see.

Outside stopped being real.

The people still let me go on walks, but going on walks isn’t the same as being outside. Lots of times I forget to do it, even when I haven’t done it in days. The fresh air’s nice, but I really feel the leash.

It sounds like I’ve gotten lethargic, but I haven’t. I still whine for food. I get excited about smells and sounds and things I hardly noticed before. If anything my senses are sharper than they were. When I eat, I taste. My curiosity is intact, it just tends toward inside questions.

Inside is the world now.

Here’s why that’s exciting. Some day, the door’s going to be open again. When I find it open to me, I’m sure I’ll be wary about stepping out for a while. But when I do! I’m going to see everything like I just got eyes for the first time. I’m going to smell all the scents like I never smelled them before. For a while at least, I’m going to remember what it was like to be a kitten, brand new to the world. Some things will be big and scary, but some will be big and wonderful.

That’s still in the future. For now, it’s nice not feeling the agony of the closed door as keenly as I had been. The new normal actually feels normal. Which means my reintroduction to the out of doors is going to be wild!